1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the estimation of changes in demand resulting from the impact of extraordinary market-disrupting circumstances, including, but not limited to, the impact of a pandemic or other crisis.
2. Background Description
Models for demand estimates (i.e., forecasts) for various products and services in supply chain analyses are traditionally based on operational supply chain data. In the traditional operational view of demand, historical time-series data of multiple streams (including, but not limited to, shipments data, point-of-sale data, customer order data, and return data) is used in conjunction with various forecasting algorithms, making allowance for scenarios such as special promotional events and the like. Such models may be expected to be sufficient for nominal conditions, as they use nominal, historical, time-series data. Such models may not, however, be suitable for forecasting demand under extraordinary conditions, since those are conditions to which historically-derived data tends not to be applicable, by definition.
A firm's nominal demand profile that is estimated using operational methods is affected by its exposure to various economic sectors in different geographic regions. As a result, there is a need to combine a market research view and an operational view to estimate demand under conditions of extraordinary, disruptive, crisis circumstances, including, but not limited to, a pandemic or other crisis. Furthermore, the prior art does not address the dependence of market demand in supply chain models on a firm's sales force availability. Thus, prior art methods of estimating demand fail to model the simultaneous effects of:                1. an inherent sensitivity to reduced level of outputs in the various economic sectors in different geographic regions that make up the nominal demand, along with,        2. an inherent sensitivity to the availability (or nonavailability) of sales force personnel, both of which may be significantly impacted by a pandemic or other extraordinary, disruptive, crisis circumstance, or        3. the presence of mitigation policies that may lead to additional adjustment of the demand estimation.        